ZIMS 1 Release Date - March 1, 2010

by Nate Flesness

We have set March 1, 2010 as the official release date for ZIMS 1 (Animal Management for Zoos and Aquariums). After a summer of intensive planning and a pilot project with A-1 Technology in Gurgaon, India, we have now formally engaged A-1 as the vendor. The project ramp-up work begins October 13th which means most of the ISIS ZIMS project team will spend the next few weeks in India.

I wish it was easier to explain briefly how much skill and thoughtfulness we have driving this project now that was absent earlier. There are two broad reasons. First, our earlier arrangement provided great financial protection (we received all of your money back) but the processes used were far too indirect and layered for developing such a unique and specialized application. It was like driving a car in freeway traffic by sending emails to the driver’s boss’s boss. Going forward ISIS has complete, hands-on project control, so this issue is now resolved.

Second, we found five hundred volunteers wonderful for developing data standards and specifying ZIMS functional requirements, and the dedication shown by all of them is truly remarkable. But it turned out that a group that size was too unwieldy for doing screen designs. (Imagine designing your next exhibit with a committee of 500.) The work done by the community remains the very center of ZIMS – nothing has been lost and we are referring to it daily as we move forward. But our new process will organize all of that input in a far more streamlined way.

ZIMS Release 1 will be built in seven highly disciplined bursts of work called sprints. Each sprint begins with two weeks of planning, followed by up to four weeks of execution (code writing) and one week of testing. Each sprint is time-boxed, which is a way of saying that we have carefully planned the work to meet the deadline and if we encounter unforeseen challenges, some functionality will be put off for a later release rather than delay the release. While some details of the sprint plan below may change, the deadline for Release 1 will not change.

Release 1 will be tested for several weeks by early adopter institutions beginning Dec 21, 2009. It will begin deployment March 1, 2010 –rolling out first to the 143 institutions that have invested funds in ZIMS.

ZIMS Release 1: Animal Management for Zoos and Aquariums
Sprint Timeline


Sprint 1: Institution
Begin Date: 13-Oct-08
Key Functionality: Institution administration including contact methods, staff, and ISIS Membership data and User Administration including roles and access rights

Sprint 2: Taxonomy
Begin Date: 22-Dec-08
Key Functionality: Taxonomic hierarchy, local synonyms, and taxon-related rules

Sprint 3: Enclosures/Tanks and Life Support Systems
Begin Date: 16-Feb-09
Key Functionality: Enclosure/Tank hierarchy, enclosure/tank characteristics, enclosure/tank observations, and life support components

Sprint 4: Animal Husbandry
Begin Date: 13-Apr-09
Key Functionality: Accessioning of individuals and groups, identifiers, transponders, morphometrics and measurement types (e.g. live animal weight, shell length)

Sprint 5: Animal Management
Begin Date: 8-Jun-09
Key Functionality: Animal observations, census, death/disposition, group split/merge, quarantine, contraception

Sprint 6: Complex Transactions
Begin Date: 3-Aug-09
Key Functionality: External transfers, pedigree, role/team responsibilities, and inventory reconciliation

Sprint 7: System Functionality
Begin Date: 28-Sep-09
Key Functionality: ARKS/ZIMS Data migration, data fragmentation, and data quality metrics

User Acceptance Testing of ZIMS Release 1: Begin 21-Dec-2009